It makes sense China dominates manufacturing standards; it’s the world’s biggest manufacturer. It seems an odd thing for the article writer to get worked up over.
Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) is very similar to human contractors getting paid by the hour.
As this allows for clearer image resolution of smaller planets around the nearest stars, I wonder will it do the same for their atmospheric composition? It seems that will be the key to first detecting alien life elsewhere in the universe. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that if any life (or its remains) are found on Mars or Europa, it will have been seeded from Earth, and not have arisen independently.
The usual caveats apply to results from testing in mice; it might not be safe in humans, and it’s generally years of clinical trials before any human treatment becomes available.
That said, I wonder why humanity doesn’t put much more effort into research like this. The birth rate is rapidly diminishing in most Western countries. The 21st century will be, for the first time in human history, the century of the old. Historically that has meant burden, but it needn’t be if research like this leads to the results it promises.
It’s important to note that the only people arguing that solar energy and food production are incompatible are involved in disinformation campaigns against renewable energy. I see it being used a lot in talking points to muddy issues.
There are some interesting ideas in this essay, but I’m struck by how much it underestimates the effects of technology, and their implications on the economy.
Does it have to drop packages from 3 meters off the ground? I’d rather it landed and gently deposit them. Even so, this won’t suit all users - what if you’re not in, or in an apartment? Guess it works for people with fenced back gardens. Still, its the future of delivery. These things can get work arounds.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge made a groundbreaking discovery: regulatory T cells, a type of white blood cell, form a unified large population that travels throughout the body to locate and mend damaged tissue. This challenges the conventional belief that these cells are divided into various specialized groups confined to specific areas of the body. The implications of this finding are significant for the treatment of numerous diseases, as nearly all illnesses and injuries activate the body’s immune response.
It’s also interesting they have tested a treatment based on this insight in mice and it has worked. That said, clinical trials can take years before human treatments become available.
Singapore has a population of 5.6 million people and is only 12 times the size of Manhattan Island. Understandably they have little room for agriculture, particularly the land intensive agriculture that producing animals for food requires. Mostly they import that from Malaysia, which is next door.
I wonder if there are government officials in Singapore encouraging all of this with a view to food security? I often wonder the same with China and their efforts to accelerate renewables. That reduces one of their biggest vulnerabilities, that if there is ever a conflict over Taiwan that they might be militarily blockaded.
One of the difficulties with ending the fossil fuel age is transitioning workers and economic activity. Geothermal energy like Fervo, apart from all its other benefits, might help solve that problem. There’s a large cross-over in terms of skills between them and the oil and gas industry. They even sometimes use sites of former fossil fuel extraction for geothermal plants. Now they seem to have successfully demonstrated proof-of-concept it’s frustrating things aren’t moving faster with this energy source.